“Miss Brennan? This is Lissa Knight.” I racked my brain, trying to remember who, exactly, Lissa Knight was. One of the Billings alumnae, undoubtedly, but I’d just talked to four of them in a row and my brain was too fried to remember anything about this one. “I’ve heard
there are some issues with the ribbon-cutting ceremony? I’ve already had my assistant charter a plane for myself and the other Dallas-area alumnae, and if I have to cancel it I need to know as soon as—”
“You don’t have to cancel anything,” I said, closing my eyes and praying for patience. “I’ve just come from a board hearing and I can guarantee you the ribbon-cutting ceremony
will
proceed as planned this Saturday morning, and all the other events are on as well.”
“You’re sure,” she said. It was more of a statement than a question.
“I’m sure. I promise I wouldn’t waste your valuable time if I wasn’t one hundred percent positive we were going forward as scheduled,” I assured her, trying for my most responsible voice.
As long as nothing else goes wrong in the next twenty-four hours,
I thought, gritting my teeth.
“Well, all right, then.” Her tone brightened considerably. “I’ll let the others know.”
“Would you?” I said gratefully, collapsing into the back of the bench and slumping down slightly. “That would be
so
helpful.”
“Absolutely. I look forward to meeting you in person, Miss Brennan,” Lissa said. “Good-bye.”
“Me as well,” I replied, then almost gagged. Was that even close to good grammar? “Good-bye.”
I hung up the phone and groaned, dipping my head toward my knees. Someone sat down next to me, and I recognized by the polished, pointed toes of her shoes and signature musky scent that it was Noelle.
“Bad day?”
“Not entirely,” I said, lifting my face and flipping my thick hair back. I sat up straight, feeling the need to keep up appearances with her as much as I did with all the alums. Lately, when I was around Noelle, all I wanted to do was prove to her that I was doing the right thing. “In fact, the board voted to let us go ahead as planned.”
Noelle rested her arm on the back of the bench, gazing out across campus, taking in the beautiful pink and purple sky. The torchlights lining the walks suddenly flickered to life, painting a quaint and peaceful picture, the kind of warm, scenic shot Tiffany would have loved to have captured on her camera. The kind of image the Easton Academy catalog would have gladly slapped on its cover.
“I heard,” she said, with a sour twist of her lips. “So why with the groaning and moaning?”
“I guess the rumors got ahead of me,” I said, holding up the phone as the screen lit up once again. “All the alums and their assistants are calling to make sure everything’s okay.” I sighed and hit ignore. “I never realized that explaining and ass-kissing could be so exhausting.”
Noelle looked me over. “You do look tired, Reed. And stress lines do
not
become you,” she added, waving a finger around my brow area. I batted her hand away. “I’m just saying! Why don’t you just let this whole Billings thing go? You’re only here for one more year anyway. Why don’t you try focusing on other things? Things that you can actually control?”
I blinked. What, exactly, made her think I couldn’t control the Billings reconstruction? Hadn’t I just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could take on anything and anyone?
“Just live in Pemberly, spend your weekends at Cornell with loverboy like you know you’re going to anyway, graduate with honors, and put it all behind you,” she added, leaning back.
“Is that what you’re going to do? Just put it all behind you?”
Put
me
behind you?
I added silently, feeling like a needy loser.
She pressed her lips together, giving me a condescending look that made my toes curl. “It’s hard to explain, but there’s something that changes when you get this close to the end,” she said, gazing out at the quad again. Couples strolled hand in hand, enjoying the warm evening. A gaggle of freshman girls giggled their way across campus toward the solarium. Off in the distance, a church bell clanged. “You suddenly start to feel . . . no, you start to
know,
that none of this . . . it just doesn’t matter, Reed.”
Now my fingers curled into fists. Didn’t she realize what she was saying? That this place that I loved despite everything, this place that had changed my life, didn’t matter? That
I
didn’t matter? That none of the crap we’d been through together over the past two years mattered?
I swallowed hard, not wanting to voice these thoughts. Not wanting to give her the opportunity to look down on me that way again. Like I was some pathetic middle schooler begging for her attention.
“I hate to say this, Noelle, but Billings . . . it’s part of our heritage,” I reminded her, shifting in my seat to face her. My phone rang again and I hit ignore as quickly as possible. “The Billings School for Girls was founded by our ancestors. I’m just trying to keep a part of that alive. Don’t you care about that at all?”
Noelle lifted her shoulders, then let them fall. “That’s all in the past. And after everything that’s happened, I think we should keep it there. It has nothing to do with us.”
I stared at her, wondering if she really believed that. Even when Josh walked up behind Noelle, hovering at the end of the bench, I didn’t break eye contact.
“Hey, guys,” he said tentatively. “What’s up?”
Noelle sighed audibly and stood, lifting her bag onto her shoulder. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her, Hollis. I’m out of ideas. And quite honestly, I’m starting to be bored by this whole thing.”
I let out a disbelieving bark of a laugh as she walked purposefully away. Josh slowly, tentatively sat down next to me and touched my shoulder, drawing a circle on my sweater with his thumb.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Just Noelle trying once again to squash all my hopes and dreams.” The phone rang and I jammed my finger into the screen over the word “ignore.” Then I turned it off and tossed it into my bag, already dreading the ten million calls I’d have to return later. I turned toward Josh. “She still wants me to give up on Billings, even though we just scored the board’s approval. She thinks I should be focusing on ‘other things,’” I told him, throwing in some highly sarcastic air quotes.
Josh tilted his head and chewed his lip, something he seemed to do often when he had something to say, but knew I wouldn’t like it. I felt my heart drop. “Well, there
is
a lot of other stuff going on.”
“Josh!” I wailed.
“Just hear me out,” he said, putting his hand on my knee. “We
have finals next week, then graduation, and we haven’t even nailed down our plans for the summer yet. We’ve got all these parties and you’ve got the awards ceremony. . . . It’s just a lot to pack in, that’s all.”
I turned my knees away from him in indignation. My insides felt crammed uncomfortably beneath my ribcage. Why couldn’t I get just a teeny bit of support for something that mattered to me so much?
But even as I fumed, I couldn’t help picturing the stack of assignments on my desk back in my room. And the dozens of unanswered e-mails and texts from my friends. Not to mention the fact that my calendar was so jammed I was running out of space to type in new events and appointments.
“And not that I want to be known for taking Noelle’s side, but this whole thing seems like it depresses her every time it comes up,” he said, looking off in the direction of Pemberly. “I almost feel . . . bad for her.”
That got my attention. No one ever felt bad for Noelle Lange. Least of all Josh. And he was right, of course. Noelle had been through a horrible thing. Was Josh that much more in tune with my best friend’s emotional state than I was?
Ugh. I loathed myself. Here I was, whining about how no one was supporting me, when all the while Noelle was needing
my
support.
I looked down at the mess of bulging bags and plans and papers and checklists and felt exhausted all over again, like I could just curl up in my bed and sleep for days. Maybe Noelle and Josh were both right. Maybe I’d taken on too much and lost sight of what was important in the process. Not just Noelle, but my other friends as well. This
was supposed to be all about the Billings Girls, but other than at meals I’d barely seen any of them lately, and a lot of them would be graduating soon—Ivy, Tiffany, Rose, Portia, London, Vienna, Shelby. Wasn’t I a total hypocrite if I ignored all of them in the name of Billings?
In the distance a construction vehicle roared to life. Carolina waved her arms in the air, directing the driver, and the last ray of sun glinted off the lens of Christopher’s camera. It looked like someone was wasting no time in getting the project up and running again.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a step back and take some time to deal with what was really important. Starting with my friendship with Noelle.
I narrowed my eyes and looked over at Josh. “I hate you, you know that?”
He smiled and put his arms around me. “Yes. But only when I’m right.”
The lunch crowd at the Driscoll Hotel restaurant on a Friday afternoon was not exactly hip and happening. Occupying the prime tables near the windows were a few middle-aged men in business suits, locked in quiet conversation as they pushed their steak frites around on their plates. In the center of the room, where everyone could see them and they wouldn’t be tarnished by the sun’s harmful rays, were a few tables full of little old ladies in pastel suits, their legs crossed at the ankles, their lipstick perfectly applied, and their hair sprayed to a shine. The maître d’ led me and Noelle to a corner table, tucking us away from the rest of the clientele, and I surreptitiously slid my phone out of my Chloé bag and placed it atop my thigh under the linen tablecloth.
When I looked up, I caught a glimpse of auburn hair and saw Paige and Daniel Ryan just getting up from a table a few settings away. She shot me a scathing look and my palms began to sweat. I just couldn’t get away from these people. I prayed they wouldn’t come over to say
hello to Noelle, and said a silent thank-you when they both turned and headed for the door.
“Taking the day off from classes to squire me to the Driscoll and a secluded corner table?” Noelle said, arching an eyebrow at me as she opened her menu. “I hope you’re not planning to propose.”
I laughed and scanned the specials menu, then placed the huge folder on my appetizer plate. “No, nothing like that,” I said, lacing my fingers together atop the leatherbound menu. “I just . . . I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of down lately and I thought it’d be cool to take the afternoon off and hang out.”
Noelle shook her head, an amused smile lighting her eyes. “I have
not
been down.” She lifted her thick hair over her shoulders and reached for her water goblet. Somehow her strong arms already looked tan in her white sleeveless dress. At least, for once, she wasn’t wearing black. “I don’t
do
down.”
In my lap, my phone vibrated. The text read:
IN LOBBY, CMING 2 U!
“Where in the world did you come up with
that
theory, Glass-Licker?”
I smirked, wondering how she’d react if I told her Josh was the one who had noticed it. “Whatever. The point is, I have a little surprise for you.”
I turned and looked over my shoulder at the double oak doors, thrown open wide to the lobby.
“Oh, God. It’s not a stripper, is it?” Noelle said, leaning sideways to see past me. She brought her fingertips to her temples. “Please tell me it’s not some cheesy stripper.”
“Oh, it’s way better than that.”
Just then Kiran Hayes and Taylor Bell walked into the room, spotted us, and let out a collective, but tastefully understated, squeal. Kiran grabbed Taylor’s hand and they rushed over to us in their high heels, catching curious and lustful glances from the men at the window tables. Kiran, at almost six feet tall, cut a stunning figure in a skintight royal blue dress and black heels, her short, dark hair tucked behind her ears. Taylor’s blond curls hung loose around her face, and her red cap-sleeve dress was belted by a black ribbon, accentuating her curves. Noelle’s jaw dropped when she saw them, and she rose from her chair.
“Oh my God! I can’t believe it!” Noelle gasped.
That was when I knew for sure she was surprised. Blurting without thinking was not Noelle’s way. They all double-air-kissed, clutching hands and grinning as I got up to hug them hello.
“What’re you guys doing here?” Noelle asked.
I held my breath, hoping neither of them would mention that they’d flown in for the Billings ribbon-cutting ceremony tomorrow, and that I’d added this lunch to their itineraries at the last minute. I’d rather Noelle believe it was the other way around.
“We’re here for you, babe!” Kiran announced, giving Noelle a squeeze. Perfect answer.
“We have declared today All About Noelle Day!” Taylor added.
“Isn’t that every day?” Noelle joked.
All of us laughed and I found myself staring at Noelle’s smile. I hadn’t seen it in weeks. Possibly months. Not a real one, anyway. As we all sat down around the table and the maître d’ hurried over with two more menus, I couldn’t stop grinning. It felt just like old times.
But then I heard it again. That odd snicker I’d heard in the hall at school the other day. I quickly turned in my seat and, sure enough, two tables over, a girl with blond hair, wearing a light blue plaid dress, sat alone, whispering into her cell. My pulse thrummed in my veins as I stared at the back of her head, just willing her to turn, willing her to finally show herself. Then she put the phone down and lifted a finger, summoning her waiter. As she turned I felt as if I was going to black out from the tension, the strain, the anticipation. But then I saw her long nose and brown eyes and realized it wasn’t Ariana at all.
“Everything all right, Reed?” Taylor asked. “You look . . . sickly.”
“Everything’s fine,” I said, turning toward the table again and forcing a smile. I looked around at the three of them and tried to shake the last inklings of fear. “In fact, it couldn’t be better.”